By and large, discussions of sample rate are like watching paint dry. Do we really have to get into the details? After all, everyone knows that you only need to sample at twice the frequency of your signal of interest to get good results, right? If you answered “right!” to that last statement, perhaps you should read on.

Producing perfect aluminium welds and eliminating harmful dust during polishing operations has been achieved by the acquisition of a series of CSF (Complete Surface Finishing) robotic solutions at Frontline Australasia at its plant in outer south-east Melbourne.

Advanced industrial drives technologies available in Australasia are being used internationally to manufacture advanced wind power generators.

Last year we published a review of technologies that are used to provide real-time or near-real-time operation over Ethernet networks. This month we examine one of them in more depth.

The Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant produces up to 94.6 million litres of drinking water per day (up to 10% of Tampa, Florida’s drinking water), making it the largest seawater desalination plant in North America. Since March 2007, the plant has desalinated over 13.6 billion litres of drinking water from the Tampa Bay.

Condition monitoring is a proven, valuable tool for optimising maintenance strategies. Ian Liebler, Rockwell Automation integrated conditioning monitoring solutions architect, explains how integrated condition monitoring can provide even greater production and maintenance efficiencies through streamlining real-time information flow.

The European Commission has extended the deadline for the transition from standard EN 954-1 to standards EN ISO 13849-1 and EN/IEC 62061. Rockwell Automation Area Manager - Safety, Gary Milburn, explores the implications to Australia’s industrial community.

Safety has become be a key focus for every business - as important as meeting financial objectives. Strategies that make risk assessment an intuitive part of the job and which encourage personal responsibility are crucial in fostering a culture of continual improvement of safe working practices.

The processing industries naturally lend themselves to a variety of categories - high risk, high expense and capital intensive, just to name a few. However, it’s becoming apparent across industry that many processing organisations are limited by their knowledge of what is happening on the floor - where their assets are, how well maintained they are and whether they are being utilised to their fullest.

Measurement at high pressure needs heavy-duty metering.

Process measurements are instantaneous but analyser responses never are. From the tap to the analyser, there is always a time delay. Unfortunately, this delay is often underestimated or misunderstood.

The Patrick Autostrad Terminal at Brisbane is now benefitting from remote control via industrial ethernet technology.

The most important target for every plant manager is to keep the plant running and maximise production. A plant should be run as cost efficiently as possible, but without compromising safety.

The ZS range of energy-saving screw blowers is suitable for air-blowing applications. According to Atlas Copco, screw technology on average is 30% more energy efficient compared to lobe technology and the company is convinced that the lobe technology, widely used at present, no longer meets the needs of today’s low carbon economy.

A three-axis motion platform, based on Baldor Electric Company’s ethernet-compatible drives, is helping to further increase the realism of crane training experience.